


Keep Daring, Keep Diving

by SapphicScholar



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: 1950s Setting, Angst, Cross-country Road Trip, Eventual Smut, F/F, Period-Typical Homophobia, Romance, background sanvers, carol au, no powers au, something like love at first sight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-02-22 06:33:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13161273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphicScholar/pseuds/SapphicScholar
Summary: Inspired by Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt, or Carol, this Supercat AU is set in New York City in the early 1950s. While working in a department store during the holiday season, Kara Danvers, an aspiring artist who is less than content with her current life and boyfriend, meets Cat Grant, a mother and divorcée shopping for presents. Struck instantly by the connection she feels with this mysterious woman, Kara reaches out, ending up on an adventure she never expected.





	1. Chapter 1

“Miss Danvers. Kara Danvers,” the floor manager hissed, waving her hand in front of Kara’s face until she saw her attention flicker back to the present as she blinked rapidly a few times. 

“Yes, Siobhan?” 

“I’ve been calling for you. It’s time for your mandated lunch break, though it seems you’ve already been taking it,” the woman huffed.

Looking appropriately chastised, Kara nodded. Just because the job wasn’t exactly her calling—the kind of thing she saw herself doing for the rest of her life—didn’t mean she shouldn’t try. “Right, thank you, Miss Smythe.” 

The other woman had already spun on her heels and walked away at that point, leaving Kara to close up her register and make her way down to the employee cafeteria, or else to roam the streets of New York City during the holiday season hoping to find somewhere with a line short enough that she could get in, order, eat, pay, and get back to Frankenberg’s all within the hour. She had tried bringing her lunch the first few weeks, hoping to save every extra penny for her upcoming trip with Mike, but she found the other employees were unscrupulous. Only once in her first week had she found her lunch uneaten where she had left it by the time she made it downstairs, and it made her question the wisdom of her normally trusting nature. 

Over lunch, Kara made polite conversation with a few of the other employees, though she tried to slip back into her own work from time to time, pulling her cheap sketchbook into her lap and tracing the outlines of her fellow employees, etching in charcoal the sallow faces of the ones who had survived decades in retail, the rosy-faced optimism of those even newer than her, the little imperfections and bits of character that shone out in the smattering of humanity at its messiest, its most real, in that cafeteria. 

“Whatcha workin’ on?” came a woman’s voice, loud and nasally.

“Oh, nothing,” Kara shrugged, shoving her sketchbook back under her leg and returning her attention to the assortment of tan-colored food on the tray in front of her: the plain chicken breast, which seemed to blend almost imperceptibly into the scoop of mashed potatoes, darkened with age, and all paired with a slice of buttered bread.

“Looked like ya were drawing.” Kara watched the woman spear a forkful of chicken and potatoes and bring them to her mouth, words spilling out between bites. 

“Ah, I sketch every now and then. Paint a bit at home.”

“That right? You any good?”

Kara shrugged. “I wouldn’t know—haven’t really shown my work to anyone. Besides, it’s not as though I own a proper paint set or any of the right equipment or materials.”

The woman seemed content enough to leave it at that, and Kara found herself grateful for the easy end to their conversation. 

“I should probably head back up,” Kara offered, hoping she would be able to slip away quietly.

“You’ve barely eaten.”

Willing her stomach not to let loose with a less-than-professional growl, Kara waved off her concern. “I’ll be alright. It’s been so crazy up on the toy floor, I thought I ought to return faster.”

“You should take the break—they’ll only give you the one, and you wouldn’t want to get taken advantage of.”

“Thanks.” But Kara knew she wouldn’t be here long enough for them to take any more advantage of her than the meager paycheck she already settled for in exchange for priceless hours she might have spent trying to take art classes or developing her portfolio. She had promised Mike, though, promised that she would find the money to go with him to Europe, to follow him in chasing his dreams, even if he hadn’t quite been able to articulate them and she hadn’t really understood what he meant about “finding himself” abroad. 

By the time she made it back up to the toy floor, having stowed her sketchbook back in her locker, figuring to anyone else it would seem much less valuable than a simple sandwich, her lunch break was well and truly over, and Siobhan was already yelling for her to cover a register. 

Kara found she didn’t mind the work quite so much if she could keep busy. The problem was when the store grew quiet enough to give her time to think; her teachers had always told her that her imagination would be the death of her. She found herself imagining just how she might capture the store, the moment, the customers in ink and paint, how best to immortalize the utter banality of it all without losing the urgency they all seemed to bring to Frankenberg’s famous toy department—how very important it was to customers to get the exact doll they needed or the perfect train set that would bring their young tyke the joy the holiday season always promised. 

“Miss Danvers, your hat!” Siobhan hissed during a slight lull in the rush, thrusting at her one of the felt Santa hats Frankenberg’s had given to their employees for the two weeks leading up to Christmas. 

“Sorry,” Kara mumbled, pulling it down and over her head, wishing she could simply disappear.

“Excuse me, miss?” 

“Yes? How can I help you?” Kara asked, forcing a smile onto her face. 

“I’m looking for the little dog—I don’t know much about it,” the woman admitted, her face falling slightly. “He has a leash, and my daughter says he moves on his own.”

“Oh,” Kara gasped, nodding as she stepped out from behind the counter. “That’s the Guide-a-Scotty. His ears flop and his tail wags when you walk him.”

“Yes! That’s the one!”

Kara’s smile turned genuine at the excitement in the woman’s voice. “Glad to be able to help.” Pulling out the small stepladder, Kara reached up to one of the high shelves and pulled down the toy box. 

“This is perfect. Thank you, miss.”

“Of course. Do you need help finding anything else today?”

“No, no, this will be all.”

“I can ring you up at the counter, then.” She led the way as the woman followed her back to the register. “Would you like to take this home with you today or do you need it shipped?”

“I’ll carry it home. Do you wrap presents here?”

“Down on the first floor. Just bring your receipt so you aren’t changed extra.”

Once the woman left, Kara helped a few more mothers desperate to find the newest toy cars and miniature fire trucks and baby dolls that could cry and wet themselves, finally settling back in at the counter with a few minutes to herself to tidy her space. It was as she stood arranging the order slips that she saw her. 

Their eyes met, and Kara swore she had never seen a woman as beautiful as the one across the store. With a long fur coat wrapped around her small frame, she stood tall, taking up much more space than a woman of her size should have been able to, her blonde hair perfectly tousled, falling in soft waves. In the woman’s eyes, she felt like she had found her muse, the one that would open up the secrets of the universe to her to see, to paint, to know in ways she could never possibly put into words. 

As the woman began walking toward the counter, her movements smooth, as though she moved effortlessly even through the crowded floor, the hordes of last-minute shoppers simply parting before her, Kara felt her heart pound in her chest. It felt like the most important moment in her still short existence, as though this woman might change everything by the sheer fact of her existence. 

“Miss, can I see that doll?”

“Huh?” Kara blinked slowly as she forced herself to focus on the woman in front of her—a short, plump woman with ruddy red cheeks rapping her knuckles on the counter, which was suddenly the most grating sound in the world. 

“The doll. I need to see it.”

“Oh, right,” Kara nodded, plucking it from the shelf behind her and returning her attention to the store floor to try to spot the woman. She found herself impossibly disappointed when she could no longer see her. Perhaps it was for the best, she thought. Things always seemed to disappoint her when they traversed that gap from fantasy to reality; nothing was ever able to compare to the possibilities her imagination conjured. 

“Excuse me,” came the low drawl of the woman she’d just been thinking she might never see again. “Do you stock those awful Roy Rogers cap guns and such here?”

“I—uh, some of them?” She wasn’t sure if saying yes was even the right answer when the woman had already called them awful. “They’ve been selling quickly—quite popular this holiday season.”

“Mm, yes, that’s what I’ve been told.” There it was—the slight roll of her eyes that suggested a toy gun was the very last thing she actually wanted to be purchasing that afternoon.

“Do you know which model your child wants?” Kara asked, hoping that focusing on the parts of her job she knew how to do would keep her from fumbling over her words once more, keep the flames of embarrassment from staining her cheeks an even darker shade of red. 

“I don’t even know that he wants it at all,” Cat admitted, rubbing at her temples.

“Oh.” It seemed trite and stupid to have even opened her mouth at all, and Kara wished she hadn’t, but it was too late now, so she forged ahead. “Um, is there another toy he might like?”

“What would you have liked when you were young?” the woman asked suddenly, her eyes flicking up to meet Kara’s. Kara seemed to freeze, as if the woman’s gaze had some kind of magical force—more pull than even the way her words fell so perfectly, so deliberately from her lips, as if each thought had been hand-crafted for her and for this moment. 

“Well, um, I got a few dolls. But what I really wanted was a train set.”

“Do you have any of those?”

“We do,” Kara nodded. “Would you like to see?” She knew she was really only allowed to leave the counter to retrieve an item, referring customers who were still browsing to the workers out on the floor, but she’d be damned if she were going to give up a chance to spend even more time with this woman when she could already feel the moments they shared together slipping by like sand in an hourglass, could sense more powerfully than ever time’s inexorable march forward that wouldn’t cease until they were forced to part—perhaps forever. 

The woman nodded and followed Kara’s lead, sweeping through the store until they reached a large display table where a hand-painted wooden trainset had been assembled and was now running, a quiet mechanical whirl filling the air around them. Kara walked her through a few of the most popular models until she chose the one she wanted and was led back to the register. 

“I’ll just need your address for delivery.”

“And it will arrive in time for Christmas?”

“Oh yes,” Kara promised. “It will be there by Monday—two full days before Christmas.”

With a nod, the woman gave her address for “the Grant residence,” an address out in the New Jersey countryside. Kara found herself wondering what it might look like, how a woman like that might live. “It will arrive? You won’t make any mistakes, will you?”

“Yes, it will arrive, and, no, I won’t make any mistakes,” Kara promised once more.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to make you nervous.” She didn’t look particularly sorry, one corner of her mouth quirked up in a small smirk. 

“You don’t,” Kara lied, flashing a beaming smile in the woman’s direction. 

The woman—Mrs. C. Grant, Kara amended—nodded, seemingly content with the answer, before bending over to sign the COD slip. With a half-smile and murmured goodbye, she was on her way once more. 

All too soon, Kara was dragged back into the cold light of reality by Siobhan’s voice in her ear. “Was that a COD order?” she hissed. 

“Yes, Miss Smythe.”

“The customer needs to keep the top strip,” Siobhan sighed, her voice tinged with annoyance. The holiday hires were always liable to forget, to make mistakes that inevitably complicated her job. “Is she still here? Go run and give it to her.”

Quickly making her way out from behind the counter, the little strip of paper clutched in her hands, Kara felt a wave of shame overtake her as she regarded her own outfit—the navy skirt whose hem had come undone slightly in the back, a quick fix that had been on her to do list for several months at this point, paired with a plain white blouse under a cardigan that suddenly seemed rather shabby. She supposed she should at least be grateful that they had run out of the thick green smocks all employees were to wear while on duty. 

“You, um, you’re supposed to keep this slip,” Kara mumbled, quickly turning to leave. 

“I know,” the woman stated breezily, the ease of her words freezing Kara to the spot. “I get most of my packages without them.”

“Still, Mrs. Grant, I wouldn’t want it to ruin your Christmas,” Kara shrugged.

For a moment, a flash of something seemed to darken the woman’s expression, but she chased it away quickly. “If it would make you feel better, I’ll take it. I can’t promise not to lose it, though,” she added, her lips curling up into a lazy smile. 

The woman finally departed in earnest, leaving Kara feeling cold and empty, like her world had been changed for a few short moments before reverting back to exactly the way it once had been—only now that earlier state seemed so much emptier. Her afternoon passed at an excruciatingly slow pace, her only solace the 15-minute break she spent downstairs carefully selecting a card to send to Mrs. Grant. Eventually she settled on a navy one with silver accents printed on a heavy cardstock, though when she went to write a note, she paused, her pen hovering over the blank page. Perhaps it had been a silly idea, after all, and yet she wished she could tell her something grand, how she seemed to have changed her life forever, perhaps even tell her that she loved her—loved her in a way she’d never loved anyone or anything in her entire life. She ended up writing, “Happy holidays from Frankenberg’s,” in careful script and signing it merely as employee 645-A. It wasn’t as though the card would mean anything to Mrs. C. Grant—certainly not a fraction of what the woman had meant to her. In a moment of boldness, she dropped it into the mailbox before she could second guess herself any further and hurried back to her place at the register. 

\---

Saturday afternoon, Mike phoned, asking if Kara might want to go catch a weekend matinee with him. And she knew the right thing would be to say yes—they were dating, after all, that was what couples did. But she couldn’t bring herself to say yes, found that her sense of apathy toward him, which sometimes verged into genuine happiness, could barely even be summoned, leaving her cold at the very idea of seeing him, of having to kiss him at the end of the date and come up with an excuse as to why she didn’t want him to come back up to her apartment.

“C’mon, Kara,” he cajoled her, “we didn’t go out last weekend either.”

“I’ve been busy at Frankenberg’s, you know that.”

“It’s not like it’s your real job,” he huffed.

“You want me to be able to have enough money to go to Europe with you, don’t you?”

“Here’s the thing—I have a friend, caught up with him down at the bar last weekend after you cancelled on me, and he thinks he could get you a painting job.”

“Really?” She didn’t want to get her hopes up only to have them let down once more, leaving her feeling worse than ever, but that was all she had ever wanted since she inherited her mother’s painting materials after her parents passed away.

“Yeah, he works for an advertising firm, and they’re looking for local artists to work on their newest campaign. It wouldn’t be like a gallery show or anything like that, but it’d get you enough for Europe—and then you wouldn’t have to worry.”

Kara bristled slightly at the idea that the only reason she might worry about working was to go on this trip with Mike, like her art was just a means to an end that she hadn’t even chosen. But then again, she had never told him anything more, had let him believe what he wanted to hear. Why would he suspect anything else? “Okay, yeah.”

“Yeah? Sound excited, Kara,” he laughed. “You’re always so serious these days.”

“I am excited,” she insisted.

“I told him we could all get together for drinks this week. You’ll manage to drag yourself up for that, huh?”

“Yeah, yeah, I can do that,” Kara agreed. “I’m just tired from the extra hours is all.”

“Well rest up.”

“I will, thanks.” With murmured goodbyes, Kara placed the phone back down on the receiver, letting her forehead drop to the wall until she heard the sound of her nosy next door neighbor shuffling forward to peer into the hallway and see who had been talking on the building’s phone. 

She ended up feeling restless all night, not nearly as exhausted by her shifts as she had led Mike to believe—not that he would have been particularly helpful for this feeling. She pulled out her paints, intending to begin working on a series of advertisement mockups that she could bring to drinks with Mike’s friend. It might not have been the kind of artwork she dreamed of doing, but it would be a start—a way to get her foot in the door and find pay for the general field of work she wanted to do. 

Instead, she found herself mixing up yellows and whites and browns and just a hint of gold, painting short waves that framed high cheekbones and petite features that were still so very striking. She found her brushes sketching the outline of a thick, rich fur, her mind conjuring up the faint memory of the perfume that hung about her and the way her voice was rich, her whole bearing regal. She’d held herself like a queen, and Kara thought she might have died happy as her subject. 

She worked into the early morning, watching as the sun began to emerge, the sky still dark gray but tinged with the faint pinks and yellows and oranges of the morning sunrise. Realizing how very tired she was, the exhaustion having settled into her bones as she sat and worked in a state of near rapture, Kara pulled herself up and walked over to the bedroom, not bothering to change before she curled under her thick wool blankets. The chill of the evening had seeped into the apartment around her—unable to touch her while she worked but suddenly overwhelming her and pulling her into an uneasy sleep filled with images of fur coats and toy trains and Mike asking why she never came around anymore. 

She woke exhausted, and only dragged herself out of bed to find something to eat, contenting herself with a sandwich, which she ate by the radiator as she read a book that had been on her bedside table for far too long at this point. 

\---

It was only 10 in the morning, but already Kara felt as though she had worked a full day. She liked to think of herself as a happy enough person, sociable enough to have close friends, even if she’d left most of them behind when she moved to New York, but the crowds were trying her patience. She thought if she never had to see another crying doll that was “close, but not just right” again, she might die happy. 

“Miss Danvers,” Siobhan yelled over the din of the floor. 

“Yes?” Kara yelled back, praying she wasn’t going to be called to help with another difficult customer who forgot all basic human decency, apparently not caring that the employees were people too. 

“You have a phone call.” 

Siobhan looked murderous, so as much as Kara wanted to ask questions, she simply scurried to the backroom instead. She picked up the phone. “Hello?” She prayed it wasn’t Mike; he’d called once during her first week, and Siobhan had just about tried to kill her when she overheard his loud laugh echoing through the receiver. 

“Is this employee 645-A, Kara Danvers?” came the operator’s voice.

“Yes, it is,” Kara confirmed, waiting as she heard the whirring sound of the switchboard operator’s room and then another click. “Hello?”

“Hello. I wanted to thank you for the Christmas card.”

“Oh, um, of course,” Kara said, her heart racing slightly at the sound of the woman’s voice. “You’re—”

“Mrs. Grant. You are the one who sent me the card, are you not?”

“No, I am,” Kara said, suddenly feeling a pang of fear, as though she had been caught in some sort of crime, like she had been stalking the woman or violating her privacy in some way. “I’m really very sorry if it was a bother.”

A light laugh crackled through the line. “No, not at all. It’s just—unexpected, that’s all.”

“It is?”

“You must be the girl from the toy department—the one who helped me to pick out the train, right?”

“Oh…yes.” It was clear now. She believed her to have been a man, someone from one of the other floors, perhaps, who had helped her with her shopping. “It was nice waiting on you. Hopefully it’s not too disappointing that it came from me.”

“Not in the slightest,” the woman insisted. “In fact, I’m rather delighted.”

“Oh?”

“It seems a shame to let such a thoughtful gesture go unrewarded,” she drawled. “Why don’t you let me take you out for a drink.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to. I’m driving in to the city for a meeting this afternoon. You get a lunch break, don’t you?”

“I do,” Kara agreed after realizing the woman had no way of knowing that she was over here nodding in the cramped, barely lit backroom. 

“12:30—meet me at the 34th Street entrance?”

Too thrilled at the prospect to tell the woman that her lunch break wasn’t at her own chosen time and actually began at 12 and ended at 1 sharp, Kara lied, “Sounds perfect. I’ll see you then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if there's an audience for this AU, so let me know if you like it and want me to continue! That being said, it's one of my favorite books (and movies, though this one is closer to the book than the film) and one of my favorite Supergirl pairings, so I'd be more than happy to keep writing and posting if it looks like people would like to read it!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the feedback on the first chapter! Hopefully you continue to enjoy!

A strong gust of wind whipped down the street, chilling Kara to the bone. She pulled her coat more tightly around her and tried not to shiver, ignoring how long she’d already been outside, ignoring just how late she would surely be for the afternoon half of her shift.

“Hello,” came the woman’s voice. It was just as she remembered it from before.

Kara waved back, smiling openly, glad that she had, at the very least, been recognized.

“You haven’t been waiting too long, have you?” Her tone could have sounded flippant—almost dismissive—but Kara knew better.

Lying, Kara shook her head. “No, just a few minutes.”

“Perfect. Now, there’s a restaurant that’s just divine up in the Upper East Side. I don’t suppose you have time, though.”

As tempted as Kara was to insist that she could go and spend ever more time in this woman’s presence, she shook her head. “Probably not. But there isn’t really anywhere quiet in this neighborhood.”

The older woman paused, seeming to consider her options. “I know somewhere up a few blocks on this street. You don’t mind the walk do you?”

“Not at all.”

They made the short walk in silence, the bustle of holiday crowds forcing them apart a few times. Once Kara caught sight of the woman smiling at her as though she saw something in Kara that she herself had never known was there. What it was, she couldn’t say, but the idea of it thrilled her.

Had she not been watching the woman closely, she might have missed the turn into the restaurant, hidden as it was behind a rather nondescript dark wooden door. Inside, there were rows of tables covered in fresh white linens stretched out in front of her. The lighting was low and the wood a dark cherry that made the whole room feel warm and inviting, as though they had slipped into some kind of sanctuary set off from the noise and crowds of the city.

Once they were settled in, their coats hung up and their cheeks slowly returning to their normal color after the harsh bite of the wind, the woman looked up at her. “Now, Kiera was it?”

“Uh, Kara actually.”

“Kara,” she repeated, and Kara couldn’t help but think she’d never heard her name pronounced more perfectly. It sounded different falling from her lips, but Kara thought she preferred it, might like to change it permanently if it would capture this feeling each time someone else said it.

“And you are? I mean, besides Mrs. Grant.”

“Cat,” she answered, dropping her attention down to the menu as though anything about her was wholly uninteresting. Yet Kara wanted to know more—everything, if it were possible.

Before she could begin to ask, a waiter approached their table. “Can I get you started with anything to drink?”

“A dry martini, thank you,” Cat ordered, barely looking up from her menu.

“And you?”

“Oh, uh, I’m…” Kara trailed off with an uncertain shrug of her shoulders.

“Oh for god’s sake,” Cat huffed, “she’ll have the same.”

“Thank you,” Kara mumbled. Her breath caught at the sight of Cat running delicate fingers through her hair, leaving it slightly tousled, falling in loose waves around her face.

“How did you think to send me a card?” Cat asked, and Kara was struck with the sensation of somehow being interviewed, as though everything depended upon her giving the right answer.

“I—you stuck out. In my memory, I mean.” She chanced a glance up into brown eyes and thought she saw a flicker of amusement, though she wasn’t sure she was in on the joke. Cat nodded her head and pulled a small golden compact from her bag along with a berry-colored lipstick that Kara recognized as being from one of the upscale boutiques—the kind of lipstick that would cost a whole paycheck but just seemed to fit with the woman somehow. She dropped her gaze back to the table when she realized how long she had been staring at Cat’s lips.

“You haven’t been at Frankenberg’s long, have you?” Cat doubted anyone who’d lasted for more than a few weeks would still care enough to remember a customer. Surely a month was the outer limit for caring; after that, the workers who lasted became the kind of automatons with graying skin and graying smocks who populated the store floors asking if she needed assistance.

Kara wondered if her service had been that poor, but fought the urge to apologize. “No, only for a couple of weeks.”

“And will you be there much longer?” Cat couldn’t help but hope that the answer was no, couldn’t stand the idea of this woman losing the air she had about her, having her sense of wonder sucked from her and lost forever. She wondered if she might end up being the one to do it to her anyway. Maxwell would say she had the same effect on people, after all.

Shaking her head, Kara let out a small huff of laughter. A part of her wondered if she’d even have a job when she got back this late from lunch. “No, just through the holidays. Then I’ll have a new job.” She hoped Cat wouldn’t ask about it; she didn’t want to jinx it before it even happened.

“Now in your two weeks,” Cat began, a small smile tugging up the corner of her mouth, “have you felt compelled to send out postcards often? Do you flash that sunny smile at everyone who walks by and charm them completely?”

“Postcards?”

“Christmas cards,” Cat clarified, muttering her thanks to the waiter as he set down their drinks.

“Oh, uh, no. Just to you.”

“Well here’s to Christmas,” Cat offered by way of a toast, breaking eye contact again only when their waiter returned to take their lunch orders.

As they waited for their food, Cat asked about her—where she lived, how long she’d been there, what she thought about New York so far. Kara found herself skimming over her answers. Somehow it seemed that Cat understood her, deduced everything she meant from all that went unsaid.

And Cat, for her part, simply listened and prompted the girl to speak when she grew silent once more. When their glasses were emptied, she motioned for two new drinks, waving off Kara’s concerns about the cost.

“I like this,” Cat murmured, more to herself than to Kara, though of course she heard.

“What’s that?”

“This. I like that you sent me a card for no reason other than that you remembered me. I like that we’re here having drinks and lunch because of it.”

Kara smiled softly, pleased by the woman’s forthrightness. “I’m glad.”

“You’re…” Cat paused, as if struggling to find the right word. “You’re very pretty. Sensitive too—I’d think you must be as a painter.”

“You remembered.”

Arching an eyebrow, Cat regarded her over the rim of her martini glass. “How could I forget?”

“You—you’re magnificent.” It was likely the second martini on what was still an empty stomach that brought it out of her, though the words were no less true for their being pulled from her accidentally.

Cat laughed—a real laugh that revealed bright white teeth and, Kara thought, made her look younger, like all the concerns that weighed on her had been erased from her memory, and it was just the two of them, here, having lunch, because she sent a card. Kara tried to imagine what she might be like at home. She thought of the fondness she’d seen in her expression when she spoke of her son, wondered if he might look like her in miniature—blonde curls and inquisitive hazel eyes. She hoped he would like the train set. She thought, then, of the husband, Mr. Grant, but found she couldn’t picture him at all. He became a kind of amalgam of all the suited men she’d ever passed on the streets, lacking all the color and vivacity of the woman sitting across from her.

When their food arrived, their hands brushed together in their haste to move their drinks, and Kara swore she felt her whole body come alive at the small touch. She had the urge to know more, to feel the texture of Cat’s black suit jacket, to curl up against the silk scarf she had tied around her neck and lose herself in the perfumed air that seemed to surround Cat. Instead she cleared her throat and pulled her hand back instantly, taking a bite of her food.

“How does someone like you end up in New York?” She spoke quickly even as she perfectly enunciated every word.

Kara thought back, thought to being sent away by her parents. They’d done it for her own good, but it hadn’t made it any easier to adjust to a new culture and a new group of people as the orphan whose parents weren’t yet dead—dying without the clear break of loss and grief that she thought might have made it easier those first few weeks. She thought of the teachers who had never tried to understand and of Mrs. Danvers who had. She’d given her a new last name and a family and a friend in the form of her daughter Alex, one of the older students who had taken her under her wing during the year or two before she left and helped Kara to find a place in the school. Kara thought of the years she had spent afterward living in the city, taken in and allowed to live in the spare bedroom of the apartment Alex shared with another girl they had gone to school with—Maggie, one of the other orphans who subsisted on the food and clothing the school and the state deigned to provide. But then—well, there was no reason to get into it now.

“What matters is that I’m here now,” Kara concluded, her eyes trained on her food.

Of all people, Cat thought, she could certainly understand the sentiment. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Nothing,” Kara answered. The store was closing early, and she’d been given the morning off of work in exchange for working the long shift today that she was now missing. “Why do you ask?”

“Would you like to come visit me? There’s some nice country out where I live. It might be nice to leave the city for a bit. If you’d like,” she added, sounding almost uncertain for the very first time since Kara had met her.

“I’d love to.”

Cat eyed her. No questions, just an answer—firm and definite. “What a strange girl you are…”

“What do you mean?”

“Flung out of space.”

\---

That evening, after a long afternoon at Frankenberg’s full of frantic last-minute shoppers and angry glares from Siobhan, who Kara suspected hadn’t fired her on the spot only because they needed another pair of hands on the busy floor, Kara steeled herself as she rounded the corner to meet Mike.

“Kara! Hey!” Mike called out, waving at her from the street corner, looking boyish in his navy coat, his cheeks stained pink from the cold.

Still feeling guilty for having cancelled on him that weekend, Kara smiled broadly and gave him an affectionate hug. “How are you?”

“Good—great, even! How was your day?”

Fabulous, she thought, just marvelous. “It was fine. Frankenberg’s was busy.”

“I bet. Hey, my mom wanted to make sure you’ll still be over for Christmas on Wednesday. You will, right?”

“Yeah,” Kara nodded. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to it—not the way she was awaiting spending the afternoon with Cat tomorrow.

“The gallery’s already opened. Do you want a cigarette or anything before we go in?”

“I’m okay.”

She let Mike tangle his fingers in hers and lead her down the block to the line for the entrance. “Oh! I got our reservations all set on the _President Taylor_.”

“That right?” She’d nearly forgotten about their plans to sail to Europe, and now she had more than one reason to want to stay in the city.

“We’ll leave the second week of March. Can you believe it?”

“This March?”

“Less than three months.”

Hesitating, Kara asked, “And if I couldn’t go for some reason, would you be able to cancel a reservation?” She knew if she said something about cancelling this early, it would just turn into a fight that she didn’t have the energy for just yet. He’d never cancel her ticket, assuming that she’d change her mind in the intervening weeks, no matter how firm she’d been.

“I could. But we’ve been looking forward to this trip for ages. It’s a dream come true.” Kara didn’t point out that it was his dream come true and that she’d simply been easygoing enough to agree to it. “It’s a shame we couldn’t just share one room.”

“Oh, no, this is for the best. People might get the wrong idea otherwise.” It would look like they were lovers, which they weren’t. Dating yes, but certainly not lovers. And even then, she didn’t feel for him the way she should, the way she did with Cat. Though, of course, she was a woman, so it couldn’t be the same kind of love, even if she’d heard of it, knew of it. There had been the stories that surrounded Alex and Maggie’s time in the WAAC and their return to Midvale after the War ended—stories that eventually drove them further down the coast to San Francisco to reunite with the other women who’d made their home there after sailing back to America. But that was different; there were reasons they didn’t see each other anymore, reasons why Kara too had fled Midvale, concerned with the wave of scandal that had cast their whole group of friends under the wary eye of the locals.

“Kara? Kara,” came Mike’s booming voice as he waved his hand in front of her face.

“What? Yeah?”

“You’re a million miles away these days.”

“Sorry, I’m just tired. That’s all.”

“Do you want to go get a coffee before we go in? There’s a restaurant down the block.”

“No, it’s fine,” Kara insisted, feeling no need to prolong their time together.

They soon made their way to the front of the line and paid their admission fee. Kara tried to hide the way her face fell at the sight of the paintings hanging on the walls. Mike was clearly trying hard to find something she would enjoy by going to an art gallery at all, and the fact that he’d forgotten how little she cared for abstract expressionism, even if it was the height of New York style these days, was something she should forgive.

As they made their way through the rooms, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a more elite crowd than they were used to, Kara tried not to blush at Mike’s exuberance, his loud voice frequently startling those around them.

“Why aren’t you happier? This is good art. I’m here because you wanted to be here.”

“I know, I know,” Kara sighed. “I just—you know I like some of the more traditional schools. Give me the bold brush strokes and landscapes of the Romantics! Or the pointillists—there’s something almost magical about the way those small details blossom out into gorgeous scenes as soon as you step far enough away…the beauty hidden except to those who know to look for it.”

Tutting at her, Mike shook his head. “There’s a reason this is popular now. You could at least try to enjoy it. You used to be happier.”

Kara wanted to point out that she still was happy—happy when she was painting or walking the city streets or simply existing in Cat’s presence. Closing her eyes, she tried to rekindle the feelings she’d once had for him. She thought back to the night they’d met. It was her first month in the city, and some coworker had dragged her to a small party being held at a friend of a friend’s place on Christopher Street. She had already been out for hours and was teetering on the edge between tipsy and inebriated. When they’d made their way inside, her eyes had fallen on Mike, who seemed to be holding court in the middle of the room, regaling those around him with some great story that had them roaring with laughter. And when he’d turned to her, asked her to sit with him, she’d felt special, like for once she’d been someone’s first choice.

Eventually they left the gallery after she’d complained of exhaustion and he’d run into enough of the people he’d been there to see and impress that he was okay with leaving early. “Do you want to go grab drinks?”

“No, I’m tired.”

“What about tomorrow? Should we do something—just the two of us?”

“I don’t think so. I have plans.”

“What? You want to work or something?”

“Yes,” Kara answered. She didn’t want to tell him about Cat, didn’t want to somehow taint the other woman by entangling her in anything outside of her perfect bubble.

“How are we going to spend months together in Europe if we can’t even spend a whole evening together, Kara?”

There it was—the guilt. She knew he loved her; he’d told her enough times. But she just couldn’t find it within herself to return the affection the way he did—not physically or emotionally. She’d tried, but it left her feeling cold and more alone than ever, even with his strong arms wrapped around her. “If you want to call it off…”

“No! I love you, Kara.”

Those words again—always the same. They should have made her feel safe, but they left her feeling worse than ever, ridden with guilt and anxious feelings that seemed an awful lot like dread. He joked the rest of the way back, and his laughter only made her feel worse, highlighting all the ways he could relax around her, be himself, while she felt less herself than ever.

That night, long after Mike had left, she settled in and wrote a letter to Cat, saying all the things she’d thought when they first met, the words she’d kept out of the first Christmas card she sent to her, the emotions she’d refused to share with Mike that already flowed so easily with Cat. She’d never send it; even now, as she was writing it, she knew it would never see the light of day. Tucking the card away into a drawer, Kara stepped back and changed into night clothes, falling asleep with thoughts of Cat and promises of hours and hours spent far away from the city, from Mike, from Frankenberg’s.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas Eve! Heads up for a bit of vague, period typical homophobia

Tapping her foot impatiently, Cat waited as the line rang and rang until it finally clicked over to the answering machine. “It’s Cat,” she sighed. Her voice sounded broken and defeated even to her. “I’ve just finished downtown—what an awful way to spend Christmas Eve. There’s—well, there’s been a change of plans. If you might want to come over tonight or tomorrow…” She hung up, too exhausted to say more. Lois would understand, at the very least, and that was all she could ask for these days: someone who understood, who would look at her without the disdain or that dreadful pity of the lawyers and “experts” who had crowded into the room to accuse her of any number of things. The half-truths buried within the accusations did little to soothe the roar of indignation that raged inside of her each time her lawyer shook his head and put a hand on hers—a gesture that she supposed was meant to assure her but that felt too much like shackling her and keeping her silent.

Already late for Kara, Cat strode purposefully out into the chill winter air, letting the wind whip away the heat of their suspicious gazes that still seemed to linger on her skin. She drove fast down the streets—almost all of them empty. She figured most people were home with their families, baking cookies and wrapping presents and doing all the things she’d never quite excelled in but had always been happy to try for Carter’s sake. Urging her car faster, she zipped through yellow lights, finally reaching the address Kara had given her. The young woman stood huddled outside, her hands jammed into her pockets and her jacket drawn tight around her neck. Yet she still smiled cheerfully and waved before running over to the passenger’s side door, shuffling into the car and looking grateful for the warmth. 

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

“It’s fine,” Kara waved off her concern, pulling the door closed behind her and looking over at Cat as she pulled away from the curb almost immediately. 

“Are you hungry?” Cat could already feel that this trip wasn’t turning out the way she’d hoped it would. Gone was the playful mood of yesterday, replaced with something somber and heavy that she just knew would seep into Kara and taint all that was good about her. 

“Um, not really? I could be.” In truth, she had knocked over the bottle of milk in her rush to get ready this morning, spilling most of it and leaving her without more than a bite or two of breakfast. But Cat didn’t seem in much of a mood to stop.

“Here at least have coffee.” She nudged a thermos that sat in the center compartment toward Kara, who poured a small amount of it into the lid and sipped at it.

“Thank you,” Kara murmured. It was good—not quite as sweet as she took it, but it was hot and seemed to reach all the way down to her chilled toes. “How’s your day going?” She cringed even before she’d finished asking; it was clear something was wrong, and it seemed in poor form to bring it up. 

“Fine,” Cat lied. “Do you still want to drive out to the country? I have food at my house.”

“That’d be great.” Kara hoped the mood might lift once Cat was there, far from the tall, imposing buildings of the city that sometimes made her feel trapped, like she would only be okay if she could soar high above them and breathe deeply for the first time. 

Putting on the radio to drown out the silence, Cat navigated them through the city streets, finally cracking the window when the she felt as though she could hardly breathe, still trapped by all the reminders of everything that had gone wrong—and things that had gone so very right but been spun into wrongs by lawyers and doctors and psychiatrists. 

It wasn’t until they got into the Lincoln Tunnel that Cat rolled the windows back up, noticing the slight shiver that Kara tried to hide from her. “Sorry,” she murmured. It felt like all she had done today was disappoint people and apologize. 

“Oh, it’s fine,” Kara insisted. “Unless, I mean, is there anything I can do to help?”

“I’m getting a divorce.”

It was stated so suddenly and so matter-of-factly that it took Kara a moment to process the information. “I’m…sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not.”

“Oh.”

“I…there are reasons to be upset. The divorce isn’t one of them.” No, everything that followed was. The screaming and the fights that left Carter huddled in his bed only feigning sleep when Cat came up to check on him. The accusations about Lois that weren’t true just because they weren’t entirely false either. The cold, clinical diagnosis, delivered in precise terms designed to sound objective when they were describing something so intimately, achingly personal. And then the ruling, the decision that the best thing for her boy would be having him swept away from her and her “tainted” influence, kept with a father who had never tried to engage with him on his level and an extended family that was more concerned with keeping Carter away from Cat than in ensuring that he got exactly what he needed. 

They rode a little while longer in silence. When they finally emerged from the tunnel back into a bright sunshine that seemed not to match the mood at all, Cat gestured up the river. “Lois lives that way.” 

“Who’s Lois?” Kara hoped she hadn’t missed a detail somewhere along the way, but it seemed unlikely. She felt as though she knew more about Cat than she did about almost anyone else, even if it were never enough. 

“Oh.” Cat paused to consider it, a wry smile curling up the corners of her mouth. “Let’s call her an old friend.” It wasn’t enough—not nearly enough—but it would do. A little while later, Cat spoke again, “Have you finished at Frankenberg’s for the season?”

“Yes, yesterday was my last day.” There had been an offer to go work down in the Cosmetics Department that she had declined, having decided that she would make the advertising job work no matter what, and a few goodbyes and promises to stay in touch that she knew were only empty words. 

“We should celebrate your liberation! There’s a restaurant out in Newark—they’re doing Christmas music all afternoon into tonight, if you want to go later.” They also made strong drinks, though Cat didn’t mention it. In the face of Kara’s liberation, she felt seized by a new mood, intent on making the most of her newfound freedom, even if, for the next three months, that freedom came at the expense of a moment’s time with her son. 

“Um, it’s really fine. Whatever you want to do.” Kara instantly regretted her choice in words at the flicker of annoyance that crossed Cat’s features. She had grown so used to Mike’s preference for choosing what they did and when they did it that she had learned to tamp down on her own desires—the sudden resurgence of them when she met Cat had taken her by surprise—and make herself amenable to anything. 

“I have just the thing.” Cat decided, making a sharp turn down an off ramp and trundling along gravelly countryside roads until they reached a small lot where rows of firs and evergreens and spruces still stood proud and ready for sale, unaware that their time of usefulness was almost over. 

Kara’s eyes lit up as she watched Cat strolling through the grounds. With her long coat swirling about her as she walked among the rows of trees, twinkling lights strung up around the perimeter of the stand and strands of holly and bright baubles for sale piled high on tables, Kara thought it would make a perfect painting, and her fingers itched for her brushes and canvases to immortalize this moment in time. Instead a loud, “Kara!” broke her out of her thoughts, and she rushed over toward Cat.

“Yeah?”

“Help pick a tree. Not too large—we’ll have to get it back in the car—but not too small either. We deserve a proper tree.”

Kara’s heart thrilled at the sound of the “we” that suggested there was anything between them, and she set to work assessing the trees. It had been years since she’d gotten a proper one; the last time had been the last winter she spent living with Alex and Maggie, and the two of them had gone out to the country to chop down their own. They came back covered in dirty and pine needles and giggling like schoolgirls caught doing something wrong. Alex had spiked their hot tea with whiskey and put on records and spun Maggie around the room while they decorated the tree with sparkling garlands and strings of popcorn they made on the stovetop. 

Eventually Kara and Cat settled on a good-sized Douglas fir tree, and Cat paid for it, tipping a few extra dollars to have the salesmen do the work of carrying it over and strapping it to the roof of the car for them. The mood on the drive home was lighter, and even the silences felt full of possibility. The landscape shifted as they drove, and nice houses began dotting up, set back from the road by acres of land. Kara was certain the lawns would be perfectly manicured beneath the blanket of snow that now covered them. 

“Well, this is it,” Cat said by way of introduction as she turned off into a curving driveway. 

“It’s beautiful.” 

“You haven’t even been inside yet.” Cat looked pleased anyway.

A young man came out the front door, and Cat instructed him to carry the tree inside and set it up in the living room. She then led Kara inside, carelessly throwing off her coat and tossing it over a hook in the entryway. Before she’d made it more than a few steps, a young boy came hurtling through the foyer, stopping short only at the sight of a new person. 

“Carter, my boy!” Cat greeted him, a look of adoration on her face as she bent over and swept him into a hug. “How was your day?”

“Dad says you’re not coming with us for Christmas.”

Kara felt a flash of white-hot anger on Cat’s behalf as she saw the look of pain in Cat’s expression. “Well, darling, sometimes plans change. But Santa knew and brought your presents here early, so you can open them with me now if you want to.”

“I know Santa isn’t real,” Carter protested, looking wise beyond his years as he crossed his arms and gave Cat a knowing look, and Kara had to stifle a laugh with a caught. Of course, it drew the gaze of inquisitive blue eyes her way.

“Hi,” she waved, figuring she should probably stay over here, since he hadn’t come to her.

“Hi,” he waved back. After a moment, he added, “I’m Carter.”

“I’m Kara. Nice to meet you.” 

He nodded in acknowledgment and turned his attention back to his mother, who began leading him over to the living room, where she’d hidden his presents behind a closed door since they arrived the day before. 

Before Cat could get them ready, a dark-haired man in a black suit came down the stairs. He had the same crooked smile as Carter, but it lacked any of the warmth, looking fake and derisive more than anything. The man cast a wary glance at Kara before turning to Cat. “I’m just gathering a few of Carter’s things.”

“Wouldn’t want to leave me with any reminders?” She kept her tone even for Carter’s sake, but the fleeting guilt in Maxwell’s express suggested he’d heard the venom in the question anyway. 

“We’ll be out of here in just a few minutes.”

“Can I just—I have Carter’s presents. Let him just open the one here?” He looked ready to protest, but finally he relented. 

Catching sight of Kara, Cat added, “This is Mr. Lord. Max, this is Ms. Danvers.” It was stiff and overly formal, but Kara found she didn’t mind the distance it imposed between them. They both hung back in the doorway as Cat brought Carter into the living room, letting him tear the wrapping paper off the tabletop train set she’d spent the previous evening setting up for him. Kara recognized it immediately and couldn’t help but inch closer to watch as Carter delighted in walking around the perimeter and inspecting every inch of it, his eyes wide with wonder. 

“Who exactly are you?” Max suddenly asked Kara, his voice cutting through the moment.

“Kara Danvers…”

“And where are you from?” The questions were innocuous enough, but Kara couldn’t help but feel as though she were under investigation. 

“New York,” she answered finally, inching her way further into the living room, hoping to put an end to whatever this was. She found an opportunity at the sight of Carter trying to find the proper order for his train cars. “You know, you can almost always spot the caboose right away because they paint it red.”

“Really?” Carter asked, picking up the red car and moving it to the back of the line.

“Yep. Sometimes it’s the same color as the engine up front, but normally it’s red.”

“Do you like trains?”

“I do,” Kara answered, settling in on the ground next to Carter so she wouldn’t tower over him. “Have you ever been on one?”

“No. But I want to,” he added, and Kara caught sight of Cat smiling at the two of them before she walked back to Max. 

“She a friend of Lois’s?” Max asked Cat, his voice low and dripping with disdain.

Already bracing herself for an argument, Cat squared her shoulders. “She’s a friend of mine.”

“And where’d you find this friend? Down in the city?”

“She sold me the train set, Max,” Cat sighed. “She sent a Christmas card, and I took her to lunch to thank her for her help.”

“That’s bold. Even for you.” Forcing a smile on his face, he called Carter away from the blonde woman his wife had apparently picked up in the city. “Carter, we need to get going.”

“But my train is here,” Carter said, looking thoroughly confused.

“It’ll still be here the next time you visit.”

“And when will that be, Max? Will you even let him near me in the 90 days you won?” She nearly spat the last word at him, stopping herself from saying more only when she looked over at Carter. 

“Can you come with us?” Carter asked.

Swallowing harshly and blinking back tears, Cat shook her head. “I’m sorry, darling. But have so much fun for me, okay? I want to hear all about the presents you get tomorrow.” She hugged him tightly until Max cleared his throat from the doorway, where he stood holding Carter’s suitcase and a bag of presents. 

And then they were gone, the sound of the engine lingering in the air long after they’d left. 

“Should I, um, I could leave,” Kara offered, feeling as though she had already intruded on a moment she was never meant to see.

“Stop,” Cat snapped, rubbing at her temples before offering an apology. “Just give me a minute. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

Kara nodded and made her way into the living room once more after Cat disappeared. She peered into picture frames, finding snapshots from Carter’s childhood. Cat appeared in a few of them, though she couldn’t find any with Max. She wondered if there used to be photos of him around the house. After peering at the titles of the books on the shelf and the records stacked beside a nice player, Kara settled herself in at the piano bench and began playing the opening notes of Scarlatti’s C major Sonata. She’d learned to play at school from Mrs. Danvers, who used to tell her about all the years she spent trying to force her Alex into lessons, only to be rebuffed again and again. The notes sounded out of time after years of no practice, but Cat reappeared at the sound and let her hands rest on Kara’s shoulders. Of course, the shock of contact startled Kara, and she dropped her hands almost immediately after fumbling her last chord. 

“Oh…are you tired?”

“I…a bit,” Kara admitted, feeling as Cat’s hands swept through her hair, gently tilting her head back and placing a kiss so light she didn’t even feel it on her forehead. 

“You don’t have to play. Do you want anything to drink?”

“It’s fine.” She wouldn’t want to be a bother, had learned long ago that it was better not to impose.

“I’m offering, Kara,” Cat huffed, sounding impatient once more, as though she weren’t the kind of person to make those offers to very many people. And really, Kara couldn’t help but think that she only did it for Carter…maybe Lois, if the mentions of her meant anything at all. 

“Could I have some hot cocoa?” She knew it sounded childish, but with the tree up and snow on the ground, it just felt right. 

“See, was it really so hard to ask?” A hint of a smile played at her lips, and Kara swore she heard just a hint of laughter as Cat turned and walked back toward the kitchen.

A few minutes later she emerged, her nose crinkling slightly as she apologized, “I let it boil, and it got a scum. If you don’t want it…”

“It’s fine,” Kara insisted, nearly scalding her lip in her hurry to take a sip to show Cat that honestly, it was good. In fact, she liked the image of Cat perpetually letting the milk boil, too caught up in her thoughts and distracted by other things to be held down by mundane details like whether her milk had boiled. 

“If you insist,” Cat shrugged, motioning for Kara to join her on the couch. They didn’t talk much, but Kara found she didn’t mind simply existing in Cat’s orbit, being close enough that if she wanted to speak, she could. Once she had finished her cocoa and Cat had finished something that smelled quite a bit stronger, they had dinner then turned to the tree. Cat put Kara in charge of putting on music while she got down the ornaments, and soon the living room was full of the sounds of soft music and quiet laughter as they decorated the tree. At the sight of a string of paper angels Kara made, Cat murmured, “how beautiful,” and Kara found herself beaming back, hoping that she was able to distract Cat from just how lonely the house might have felt otherwise. 

As they worked, Cat asked about Kara’s family. Normally Kara brushed away questions with a practiced line, but after having seen Cat brought so low, been made so vulnerable, she couldn’t bear to lie to her. So she found herself opening up, talking about how her parents sent her alone from a country ravaged by political fighting, staying behind to fight as heroes or die for their sins. She’d arrived with little to her name and was taken in by a school in Midvale. Several months later, she received a few of her parents’ belongings—her mother’s paints, her father’s journal, a blanket, and money that Mrs. Danvers had put into a bank account for her until she graduated. 

“You couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Carter,” Cat murmured, shaking her head and looking distraught.

“It was…I was fine.” And what astounded Cat most of all was how true it seemed. Oh, she had no doubt that it had been difficult, that assimilating had likely come at the cost of losing the culture Kara once loved, the one thing that felt like home still. But here she was, still standing, still fighting, resilient to the last. “I had people in Midvale.” She told Cat about Eliza Danvers, the first teacher to see beyond the downcast eyes and the hesitance to speak up in class, the first one who had treated her as more than the pitiful orphan. The other teachers were nice enough, Kara explained, but their kindness did little to help in any kind of lasting way. They reminded her of all that she had lost without ever offering a way forward. 

Lost in memories now, Kara went on to talk about Alex and the other girls at school, then the pain of losing Alex when she went off with Maggie to join the WAAC. She swore she saw something that looked like a shimmer of recognition in Cat’s eyes at that, but Kara pressed on, telling Cat more about her final years in school and the joy of being reunited with the closest thing she had to a sister when Alex returned to Midvale with Maggie and a few new friends in tow. “But then, well, people can be cruel sometimes, when they don’t understand, I mean,” Kara hedged. “Alex and Maggie and Susan moved down to San Francisco, and I came out to New York. I mean, if I wanted to be a painter, this was the place to do it, right?”

“Do you think one day you might like to show me your paintings?” Cat asked, figuring it was best not to dwell on the stories of pain and hurt unless Kara began that conversation once more. 

“Maybe. I’ve never shown them to anyone else.” That wasn’t entirely true. Mike had seen a few paintings, but he hadn’t seemed to care. And Kara convinced herself that she had simply built up what a reaction should look like in her head so high that no one could possibly meet her expectations, but now she thought Cat just might. Mike’s family might have emigrated from a nearby country, might have shared a similar culture and spoken a language familiar enough to fill Kara with waves of deep nostalgia, but he hadn’t ever understood the depth of her loss. They had chosen to leave, had chosen to make a new life for themselves together in this land of opportunity. When he looked at her landscapes and cityscapes, the last vestiges of a forgotten world, he saw nothing more than vague memories. But Cat…Kara couldn’t help from hoping that she would understand them for what they were. 

“What about you? Any hidden passions?” Kara teased, ready for the attention to move away from her for a few minutes.

“Hmm, you really don’t know yet?” Before Kara had time to process the question, Cat was moving over to the sofa and settling herself in one of the corners with her feet tucked beneath her. “I like to write,” she admitted, though Kara suspected that wasn’t what she had been ready to say. 

“What kinds of things?”

“Journalism, mainly. Did it professionally back before I had Carter. Max insisted it wouldn’t do to have me out working with a baby at home.”

“Wow, that must have been hard.” She’d heard from some of the girls in the temp jobs she held about their time working as secretaries at newspapers. The hours were long and the men demanding.

“Oh, it was. At first they’d only let me make coffee. Then, when I finally got to write anything, it was the social pages—wedding announcements and such. One day I walked into my boss’ office and showed him proof of how well I could write, asked if I could get a chance to write just one political story, even just local politics.” Kara looked up at her hopefully. “He laughed in my face and told me I’d be better off making sure his coffee was hot by the time it got to his desk.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Or do, it doesn’t make much of a difference,” Cat reasoned. “Point is, it made me angry enough to do something about it. Lois and I—that was where we had met—banded together with a few of the others from the Women’s Press Club of New York who had wanted to do more than write wedding and birth announcements. We formed a secret little office where we wrote, then had some kind, bumbling fool sell them to the local papers. He kept a small cut in exchange for being the male face we needed.”

“Didn’t they recognize your names?”

“Initials only. For a while Lois wanted to go very George Eliot…once I left she did, came up with some gaudy nom de plume.” 

“Wow. That’s incredible, Cat. You—you’re incredible”

“I am, aren’t I?” Her loud laugh filled the room and delighted Kara. Maybe it was the result of just a bit too much scotch, but if it kept her from thinking about Carter, Kara was happy enough. Cat let out a small little noise when the clock chimed. “Oh, that’s one in the morning now, isn’t it? You’ll have to stay here for the night, if that’s okay.”

“That’s just fine.” She had no desire to go home in any case. 

“Tomorrow’s Christmas, though. I assume you have plans?”

“Not really. I told Mike I might stop by his parents’ house.” In fact, she had promised to be there by noon at the latest. 

“And do you love Mike?” Cat schooled her features into an expression of indifference. It wouldn’t do to ruin something good on the altar of idle fantasies. 

“I,” Kara paused, finally shaking her head no. “I thought I might once. And he loves me. We’re supposed to go to Europe together.” Kara wasn’t sure why she was admitting all of this to Cat; surely the woman wouldn’t care.

“To Europe? So you’re at least sleeping together.” It might not have done to ask, but it would be all the confirmation she needed to know to back away. She’d already ruined her own life; to do it to someone else would just be cruel. 

Blushing faintly, Kara resolved to answer and prove herself a mature adult. “We tried. A few times. We don’t anymore.”

“Oh.” Oh that was something else entirely. She sat quietly as Kara spoke, offering practiced lines about why and how she suspected it would be different if she were in love, that she wouldn’t be left feeling cold and alone, even when someone else’s arms were still wrapped around her. “Sometimes it takes time,” Cat acknowledged. “Don’t you believe in giving people second chances?” God knows she’d needed enough of them. 

“But why? It’s not pleasant, and I don’t love him.”

“If this worked itself out, though, would you?” Even as she said it, Cat hated herself for pushing away one of the few people who had made her happy in recent years.

“Would you call that love?” Kara countered. “That isn’t how falling in love works.” She thought it might have been once upon a time, but then she met Cat, and she had no better word for how she felt for the woman than love—this feeling like she was flying completely out of control but unafraid, like she had surrendered herself entirely to Cat without the other woman’s ever knowing it.

“No,” Cat admitted, a wistful smile playing about her lips. “What is it you liked about him?”

Kara paused, thinking for a few long moments. “He reminded me of home. Or I thought he did. He had a family that spoke a little like mine had and ate food that was as close to mine as I’d ever tasted in America. And he liked me, you know? He was happy and easy enough, and after Midvale I just…I needed that.”

“But sometimes we outgrow the things we thought we needed.” 

Kara was grateful that Cat seemed to understand without needing any more questions. “Is that what happened with Max?”

With a rueful laugh, Cat shook her head. “No, it was just the thing to do in your twenties. We were from similar enough families, so we did what they told us. I think…I think for a time maybe we were happy. But maybe we just intrigued each other.” He wasn’t like the other men, who had been much too easy to read, and that was enough to hold Cat’s attention for a while. But it wasn’t the kind of thing that lasted. And then there had been Lois, lost from her life for so many years before coming back when things were already over with Max in all but law, and it had been so easy to fall back into old patterns, even if she knew at the end of the day they’d never have anything more together that that. 

Stifling a yawn, Kara heard the clock chime two. 

“It’s really gotten late. You should go to bed. Here, I’ll find you something to wear.”

When Kara finally fell asleep, Cat’s lilting, “Merry Christmas, I hope you get whatever it is you wanted,” still rang in her ears, and she dreamed of home and Midvale and this house out in the Jersey countryside with Cat.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Tumblr @sapphicscholarwrites


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